The world’s most difficult word to translate has been identified as “ilunga” from the Tshiluba language spoken in south-eastern DR Congo.
It came top of a list drawn up in consultation with 1,000 linguists.

Ilunga means “a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time”.

It seems straightforward enough, but the 1,000 language experts identified it as the hardest word to translate.

In second place was shlimazl which is Yiddish for “a chronically unlucky person”.

Maybe I prefer the Japanese approach, at least the way it sounds to a non-speaker.

In a society where social interconnection is understood to be as real and important as any other – if anything it may be taken as too much so! It’s not surprising that there be a matter-of-fact term for the kind of accommodation to the beliefs of others that is needed to prevent total polarization.

Calling anyone who acknowledges the necessity to at times pretend to believe certain things a hypocrite is a self-righteous denial of the complexity of life and an insistence on harsh, black & white labels and judgements.